Month: June 2017

The Performance Studies International conference’s theme “OverFlow” takes a reverse view on the political tropes customary in “times of crisis” – “OverFlow” focuses on abundance, transgression, and leakage instead of the usually evoked themes of lack, restriction, and loss.

Cathy O’Carroll’s paper – ‘When the Amateur appears on the Scene: Leakage and Transgression between memorial, drama and personal testimony’ – Responded to the overall conference theme of ‘Overflow’ examining the ‘overflow’ between performance, memory and ritual in Ireland Shed a Tear? by Michael Collins and These Rooms by ANU and CoisCéam Dance Theatre.

“I pursue the interconnection of amateurism, motivation and intervention through philosopher Bernard Stiegler’s theoretical construction of ‘the amateur’ […] Amateur participation acts within a libidinal economy of desire producing an abundance that represents a redemptive milieu within our exhausted economy of creative capital.  This is a motivational force, that overflows the boundaries of passive spectatorship to initiate further doing in the world; to open both work and world to beneficent processes of psycho social transformation.” (Cathy O’Carroll, 2017)

Connell Vaughan has published a chapter in the following anthology

https://vernonpress.com/title?id=127#.WXEeh8aZMch

 

“Whereas liberal arts and sciences education arguably has European roots, European universities have evolved over the last century to become advanced research institutions, mainly offering academic training in specialized disciplines. The Bologna process, started by the European Union in the late nineties, encouraged European institutions of higher education to broaden their curricula and to commit to undergraduate education with increased vigor. One of the results is that Europe is currently witnessing a proliferation of liberal arts and sciences colleges and broad bachelor degrees. This edited volume fills a gap in the literature by providing reflections on the recent developments in Europe with regard to higher education in the liberal arts and sciences. The first section includes reflections from either side of the Atlantic about the nature and aims of liberal arts and sciences education and the way in which it takes shape, or should take shape in European institutions of higher learning. The edited volume takes as a distinct approach to liberal arts and sciences education by focusing on the unique way in which core texts – i.e. classic texts from philosophical, historical, literary or cultural traditions involving “the best that has been written” – meet the challenges of modern higher education in general and in Europe in particular. This approach is manifested explicitly in the second section that focuses on how specific core texts promote the goals of liberal arts and sciences education, including the teaching methods, curricular reflections, and personal experiences of teaching core texts. The edited volume is based on a selection of papers presented at a conference held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in September 2015. It is meant to impart the passion that teachers and administrators share about developing the liberal arts and sciences in Europe with the help of core texts in order to provide students with a well-rounded, formative, and genuinely liberal education.”